Learning Resources

Abstract: While universities have long been bastions of intellectual diversity, they are now embracing a broader understanding of diversity that extends beyond race, gender, and socioeconomic background. Neurodiversity, a concept celebrating the natural variations in human neurological functioning, is gaining prominence as an essential aspect of fostering a truly inclusive educational environment.

Abstract: The planning team for Portland Community College will discuss lessons learned while practicing equity to create an inclusive Facilities Plan for Oregon’s largest higher education institution on thresholds of global, local, and institutional shifts. Portland Community College, a multi-campus institution constantly navigating academic, workforce, and social change, offers critical and timely lessons for effective and inclusive integrated planning. Attendees will be encouraged to consider relationships between educational equity, campus planning, and institution-wide shifts. They will feel empowered to balance uncertainty, flexibility, and specificity in planning equitable futures.

Abstract: Designing equitable spaces is an important part of closing the achievement gap between white students and students of color. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT) in facilities planning is a way to step back, reflect, and look for ways our current environments—and the processes used to create them—hinder or discourage students of color. Students leaders and the project coordinator will share how Portland Community College (PCC) has applied CRT and participatory action research to foreground the leadership and insights of students in campus planning and design.